1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to an automated bidding system, and in particular to a system and method for deciding a combination of bids (commodities, goods, and/or services for bid) in such a way as to maximize the present or future profit obtainable therefrom in the case where the bidding is for a plurality of items.
2. Description of the Related Art
When the practical use of the on-line auction on a network has become possible, an automatic bidding price decision system has been developed which is designed to automatically decide bidding prices by using an agent or by establishing a specific auction protocol of an auction server.
According to a paper written by P. R. Wurman, M. P. Wellman and W. E. Walsch “The Michigan Internet AuctionBot: A configurable Auction Server for Human and Software Agents” (Second International Conference on Autonomous Agents, 1999), they have developed an automatic bidding system for enabling the individual bidders to make a successful bid for purchasing a desired item at a reasonable price by using an auction server employing the Vickrey Auction based on a protocol such that a bidder is allowed to make a successful bid at the second highest bidding price, if the bidder makes bidding at the highest price representing the highest value of the item which the bidder desires to buy.
According to another paper written by A. Chavez and P. Maes “Kasbah: An Agent Marketplace for Buying and Selling Goods” (Proceedings of the First International Conference on the Practical Application of Intelligent Agents and Multi-Agent Technology, 1996), the automatic price adjustment by the agents in double auction has been made. In this system, a bidder desiring to purchase a commodity inputs the desired lowest price and highest price as well as a parameter for determining how the price increases by the end of bidding. On the other hand, a bidder desiring to sell the commodity inputs the desired lowest price and highest price and a parameter for determined how the price decreases by the end of bidding. This information is used for each agent to raise or fall the bidding price as required and decide a successful bidding price when it encounters with an agent proposing an acceptable price.
Q. Huai and T. Sandholm discuss a bidding server using the mobile agent (see “Mobile Agents in An Electronic Auction House” (Proceedings of Mobile Agents in the Context of Competition and Cooperation. 1999)). For instance, by using an incrementer agent, within the range of desired price of a bidder, a bidding at a higher price than the highest bidding price bid by another bidder can be made automatically. Further, this paper suggests the possibility of extension to bidding of plural commodities or to plural bidding servers, but it does not disclose how it is done.
In Federal Communications Commission of the United States an electronic bidding system for a radio communication license has been employed since 1994. Under this bidding system, the biddings for the grant of licenses covering plural regions are made in parallel and therefore a simultaneous multiple round auction system is adopted. This auction system, one based on the protocol differing from that of the English Auction, is designed not only for simultaneous multiple biddings but also for permitting the highest price bidder to withdraw its bidding by paying a certain penalty. Such a special auction protocol is effectively applicable to a bidding for plural commodity items in one market but is not effectively applicable to another bidding for plural commodity items over plural markets in cooperation with each other.
However, none of the above-described conventional bidding systems provides a bidder with a means for computing the profit obtainable from a proposed combination of the commodity items within a total purchasing fund. The reason is that a conventional bidding system primarily focuses on the automatic bidding for a single commodity and therefore a method for simultaneously computing the profits obtainable from plural items has not been established yet. In other words, environment for permitting the simultaneous bidding for plural items over plural markets has not been provided.
In addition, there has not been established any means for automatically providing a strategy on which a bidding is to be actually performed based on computed prospects for profits because there has not been proposed any method for theoretically and logically explaining the relationship among the profits from a plurality of items. Accordingly, a bidder, when bidding, cannot predict possible events occurring as the result of the bidding.